1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of speech analysis, and more particularly to rating speech naturalness of speech utterances based on a plurality of human testers.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Assessing the level of naturalness of speech utterances may be performed by presenting native-speaker volunteers with speech utterances under test and asking them to rate their level of naturalness. Another known way is to generate a comprehensive (e.g., statistic) model for a specified language in a specified accent and then, using a computer, to analyze the utterances under test in view of the comprehensive model to determine their level of naturalness.
Determining the speech naturalness has many uses. For example, it may help improve the development of synthesized speech; it may be used in foreign language studies; and may be used in statistical studies of a specified human population. In particular, it may be useful for evaluating and selecting of candidates for call-center agents, according to how close their accent is to a native speaker accent.